Two independent sources confirmed Angelou's death to WXII's Wanda Starke Tuesday morning. She was 86.

A police car and an ambulance were seen outside Angelou's home around 8:30 a.m. Winston-Salem police said they are at the home to investigate a death.

Angelou, a Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, was born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis. In the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked Angelou to serve as northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Angelou received many accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in 2008.